Get Accused Of Copyright Infringement Under New Five Strikes Plan? It'll Cost You To Challenge

from the guilty-until-you-pay dept

I wanted to do another follow-up on the post earlier today about the new five strikes plan "voluntarily" put in place by most of the major US ISPs and the RIAA/MPAA. One of our key concerns is the fact that it's all based on accusations, rather than any actual proof of infringement. The defenders of the plan say that it's okay because there are so many warnings and you can counter the strikes by asking for an "independent review." But... the details show that you actually will need to pay $35 to get that independent review. So it's not just guilty until proven innocent, but you need to pay up just to claim you're innocent.

One **AA representative was heard to say, "We are sure this plan once properly implemented will restore the excessive and obscene profits that our executives have become accustomed to for doing nothing over the years."

Before anyone tries it, this 'business model' is patented and I'll sue anyone who tries to implement it without appropriate licensing fees....

Time For Action

it seems to me that the ISPs will need to amend their terms of service to implement this. So, when you receive the updated TOS simply notify them that you do not agree to the updated TOS and that you will be leaving to a more enlightened ISP. If you are in a contract (not sure how ISPs work in the USA), them changing the terms of said contract should be enough for you to walk from it without having to pay any termination penalties.

If a significant portion of their subscribers do this, they will get the message loud and clear. Hit them where they will notice: their bottom line.

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I will just cancel my internet service, it's not like it's a human right or anything... oh wait it is, then I'll just change my ISP to one of the following options: Time Warner, Time Warner and Time Warner.

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Re: Time For Action

The problem with your reasoning is that there are local monopolies in most of the country. If I want an Internet connection with decent speed I have one choice. A half mile down the road they have a different one choice. My wife needs a good Internet connection for her job so the phone company's copper wire is not an option. Believe me, I would dump Comcast in a second if there was another viable option but there isn't. In my old town there is actually competition and they pay $20 less a month for the same service I do. I just hope nobody around here knows how to break my wifi encryption. It's a lot easier than you think it is.

Re: Time For Action

The problem with this is that, in many areas, customers do not have the option to subscribe to an ISP that doesn't implement this policy. For example, only Comcast services my home with broadband Internet. Nobody else, unless I want to go satellite, which I don't consider to be a viable alternative for performance reasons. Even in a more urban area, there may only be Comcast and AT&T or Time Warner.

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Reminds Me of Something

Last year, I got a notice from the water company that they were going to be vigorously enforcing water restrictions that limit what days and times people were allowed to water their lawns. If they caught you violating the restrictions, they said, they would hit you with a $100 fine. You could appeal this fine, of course, but first you had to pay a non-refundable filing fee to do it. How much was said filing fee?

$100.

If they don't get you coming, they'll get you going. Both, if they think they can get away with it.

Can I personally send in infringing IP addresses? It should be ok, since I would be unlikely to include RIAA/MPAA/ISP company IP addresses or any personal IP addresses of almost every employee of those groups. It certainly would be very unlikely to happen any more than the alloted warnings.

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Was wondering about the dialect. Also about the fact that what appears to be the new file creation command is inside the loop. (and, to nitpick, you appear to be missing a closing parenthesis inside the brackets - unless it's a really obscure syntax...)

Er... and shouldn't those be periods, not apostrophes?

(and does this language really do four-dimensional loops that quickly and easily? because that's pretty cool)

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Simpler solution here, have every bittorrent tracker (or client for trackerless torrents) randomly throw ten or so addresses owned by the big 5 into the pool on every active torrent. Given the thoroughness with which the **AA lot do their evidence gathering, every single customer should be cut, and pissed, off within a week.

Not supposed to happen

It would certainly be horrible if politicians felt the pain of such poor guilty until proven innocent policies. I'm sure they continue to be sympathetic to the content industries if they were caught up in their attacks on consumers. Their spouses and children would have to nod their heads in agreement how this is the right thing to do when their internet is slowed to a crawl or terminated.

Re: Not supposed to happen

This is the only way to get the point across. We the people have to spam the accusation system. Write a short phrase, or a song, or draw a simple image, publish it. Submit dozens, hundreds of accusations that the company reps and politicians have infringed.

They assume I guilty and Slander my good name with the ISP. I have not been found guilty of anything and yet they can slander me to the point where I can lose my ISP connection, and my job as I rely upon internet access for my job.

This need to have major consequences for false accusations. By that I mean if you prove you have been false accused 3 time then they can not accuse you any more (three strike to get you). I would also like to see $1 million penalty (split between you, your ISP, judge, and local politic's favorite charity) for a proven false accusations. The point is to make the RIAA/MPAA really think about the accusations.

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What could possibly go wrong?

Given the history of the companies involved. how likely is it that they will have a chance in hell of even identifying the correct subscriber? (I'm recalling incidents like Verizon's decision to block all email from Europe -- ostensibly to stop spam -- at the same time that Verizon's network was one of the top spam sources on the planet.)

They're just selling a new scarcity of "justice", Mike.

Typical capitalism. Aren't you conservatives and libertarians pleased now that anti-trust and anti-cartel enforcement is gutted? Here's a consortium openly deciding how they'll fleece you. Giving The Rich their "freedom" is going to bite you.

Re: They're just selling a new scarcity of "justice", Mike.

The government created these monopolies in the first place. "Anti-trust" laws and lawsuits were only created for use on companies not approved by the the ruling economic czar.

As libertarian that opposes the creation of these monopolies by the government in the first place, I don't really see what I have to apologize for. The public is getting exactly what they lobbied for; less free market, more central control.

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Now, if only one of you people would prove causation rather than looking at correlation then we wouldn't be having this argument. Until then, you only get to try to be smug until the next inevitable dip in sales - who's your next scapegoat?

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So, you're admitting that there might not be any direct link between the Limewire shutdown and the increased sales? Also admitting that there might be other factors that have nothing to do with "piracy" or the attempts to "fight" it?

If so, you're coming dangerously close to admitting that the black & white fantasy world most ACs pretend exist isn't real. Just because I questioned your logic, that doesn't mean I'm suggesting the exact opposite - the real world can be complex like that. Then, we can get back to discussing real ways of improving the industry for both artists & consumers.

If not, then you have a very simplistic view of the issues at hand, so I don't think you can really grasp what's actually being argued in most of these threads.

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Perhaps you should do some research.

"An irony, however, is that although album sales have been bolstered this year by sales of blockbusters from superstar artists such as Lady Gaga and Adele, the net gain is more due to strong response to sales of older albums -- those released 18 months ago or earlier."

and it won't be the last time the beatles make someone richer. They are about to release the collections on itunes:http://macdailynews.com/2011/05/31/the-beatles-anthology-makes-digital-debut-on-itunes-stor e-on-june-14-pre-orders-now-available/
and I am sure the documentaries (that are just a collection of old footage) will be rerelease on itunes in 6 months. Then 6 months later they will release something else beatles related that isnt on itunes yet. After the run out of stuff they will start releasing "new" digital collectors bundle, which has one unreleased song. Then if they run out of old shitty versions of songs that didn't get onto an album for a reason they will release the music with a new photo of yoko's tit or come with a special forward by paul mcartney's dog.

The fact that the beatles stopped making music decades ago has never stopped the industry from making a shit ton of money from them before.

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I don't think you realize just how big the 'party' is these days, let alone where the 'party' is even happening. It's already moved to the 'encrypted' party... Have fun with your gestapo web and good luck with that!

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I don't understand why you pirate types can't understand that the party is over.

Then what are you worried about? If you think the public will forgive you for stealing their public domain and throwing them in jail for creating YouTube mashups, then start paying you money because you seem to think that you produce some content they simply can't live without, then what is it that brings you here?

USian

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Thanks to our new conservative government I'm sure we'll see a steady stream of decades old failed US policies brought into Canada so we likely have at least 10 years before this one comes up. The Cons will want to be good and sure it failed like the War on Drugs and Tough on Crime policies before they implement them.

This is only the first step

This will make it less likely that small entities and individuals will make any kind of content available since a "competitor" or simply somebody you once pissed of can shut you down or cost you money by claiming everything on your site infringes.

A "read only" Net is just television through wires so big media will be on top again.

Then they can bitch that the bandwidth is a "scarce resource" and get Congress to enact an "FCC for the Net" limit transmitters to "licensed" and "approved" ones only and then censoring becomes just a threat to yank your license.

And they will certainly put in Government Firewalls, not to censor foriegn sites mind you, just to prevent them from consuming OUR PRECIOUS BANDWIDTH.

Re: This is only the first step

“Content Theft Means Less Internet Bandwidth For You: A recent study found that digital content theft, including the use of P2P networks, streaming and cyberlockers, accounted for almost a quarter of global Internet bandwidth consumption.”

BTW Netflix accounts for a full quarter of net traffic, so lets get them first!

Sue ISP for first amendment violation.

Charging the accused to challenge, in my opinion, is wrong and I think that maybe taking the ISP to court for violating the first amendment might make them realize that side stepping the law isn't a good idea. Once in court the ISP will have to provide evidence of any copyright violation you have been accused of by others.

I'm not a lawyer, but making them provide proof of their actions might make them think twice before charging the innocent money in order to prove they are innocent.

Re: Sue ISP for first amendment violation.

Wouldn't work, especially in "right to refuse service for any reason" states like Wisconsin. The First Amendment does not empower an individual to force a company to serve as a soap box or venue for free speech.

Defemation may have a shot, though...especially if an unproven accusation forces businesses offline that rely on the internet.

Re: Just goes to show..

You too can be accused by the super secret tracking technology employed by the presettlement shakedown industry.

The technology that in its early days send multiple notices to a laser printer for sharing the movie "The Matrix". (With its massive 2 meg of ram, I am guessing it was a frame at a time.)
And that technology only gets better as a recent USCG filing names 8.8.8.8 as a evil pirate stealing crappy movies. (If your playing the home game - 8.8.8.8 is one of the Google Public DNS Servers.)

BitTorrent and fake IPs

Some BitTorrent trackers add fake IP addresses to their responses. And your IP address can be added to the tracker response if your browser is made to follow a specially-formatted link.

So, if your IP address happened to be randomly generated when their bots requested the list of peers from a BitTorrent tracker, or if someone on a forum you frequent added a hidden image or iframe pointing to the specially formatted link, you are going to be added to their lists and be falsely accused.

And knowing the mentality of a well-known group of Internet users, which I shall not name, they will be doing everything they can to add as much people as possible as many times as possible on as many of these lists as possible. For the lulz.

Hmm, what would happen if I intentionally download lots of music from torrents that I've already legally purchased? Drat. Pesky hard drive failures always messing up stuff and creating fair use defenses. When I get whacked for infringement, guess who's getting sued for defamation and breach of contract causing severe damage to my job--online legal research for my corporate clients. I'm not paying $35 to tell them I'm innocent. They're going to pay my partners $375 an hour plus costs.

Oh and to the guy who says you can't sue the ISP for First Amendment violations, that's true because they're a private corporation. But you can argue that a term of a contract is unconscionable or the court enforcing it would violate the First Amendment and that you wouldn't have agreed to it if you had any other reasonable choice. In today's world, having no ISP is just not reasonable.

I don't pirate anything, and have no need or desire to.

However, should I ever get a bogus accusation and resultant service cutoff, there will be some really, really sorry executives in the ISP. Or rather, I should say really, really sorry families of these executives.

Par for the course. In Ontario, Canada we have a privately-operated toll road - 407 ETR (ETR stands for Electronic Toll Route). There are no toll booths. Toll calculations are based on transponders or photographs of your licence plate.

Sometimes errors are made. What to dispute your fees? It will cost you $100. I kid you not. If you choose to not pay, your plate renewal will be denied until the fees (plus any additional fees and charges) are paid. Pick your medicine.

I think it's time that the term "piracy" no longer be used - it's a false flag and a means of misdirection. The act should be called what it really is - sharing. Let's see the MAFIAA try to explain to people why they're trying to stop people from sharing, which we're all taught as kids is the right thing to do. As long as we keep using their loaded terms, it's harder for the truth to spread and be known. It's not "piracy." It's sharing. And sharing is caring.

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No intelligent response, so an ad hominem is used instead. Typical. Which means I'm right, since you have no logical, empirical response you can make. I want either a complete chain of causality showing exactly how the sharing of a specific file has harmed a specific artist at a specific time in a specific way, backed up with empirical non-industry data, or a complete retraction of everything you have ever said on this site. Now. Choosing to do neither is admitting you are wrong and I am right.